


Carve Your Name

by bambithepenguin



Category: Hurts (Band)
Genre: Domestic, Humor, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4929529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bambithepenguin/pseuds/bambithepenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A harmless prank takes an unexpected turn and ends up in something much more serious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carve Your Name

The lengthy deadpan sleep finally dissolved and handed Adam into the claws of a hangover awakening. Hearing the mixture of groans and fidgets, Theo glanced at him from the desk and smiled.

“Oh, finally. I was already googling recipes for dinner in bed.”

“Were you? I’ll sleep a bit more till you bring me something greasy then,” Adam mumbled and closed his eyes again. His head hurt to the point where even Theo’s voice, the dearest sound he knew, seemed intolerable.

“Just for the record, I drank almost as much as you did and I’m having a hangover too,” Theo informed, heading to the kitchen nonetheless, “Yet here I am, a cook and a waiter for you at the same time… Next time you serve me, Adam!” he chuckled from behind the wall.

“Fuck, I don’t want another time,” Adam groaned, “I really need to stop drinking that much… Anyway, your hangovers are easier than mine so it’s just fair…”

“Maybe. You’re so lucky I’m here to push you around in a pram.”

“Even crawling into a pram would be too much movement for today.”

“Alright. Hibernation’s today’s plan,” Theo giggled as he walked back into the bedroom with a plate of fried eggs and a cup of tea. He put the breakfast on the bed stand and went back to his laptop. A glimpse of an unfamiliar darkness on Theo’s wrist caught Adam’s eye, and he squinted in bewilderment.

“Wait, what’s that? I can’t remember you having a wrist tattoo. How much did I miss this night?”

“Oh, that… How can you not remember?” Theo smiled at the screen “It was the highlight of the night for me.”

“And for me, too “high”, little “light”… What is it?”

“Hm… You’ve really offended me with forgetting such an important event so I’ll just say I didn’t have to search for inspiration too far.”

“I didn’t even know you were planning another one.”

“Likewise,” Theo smirked so meaningfully that Adam winced.

“What do you mean – likewise? Did I get some silly picture somewhere on my body too?”

“Not just a silly picture! It’s far bigger than that!”

“Bigger? What… where did… oh,” Adam suddenly realized and looked at his wrist. He saw Theo’s name, written in a font so ridiculous and accompanied by such a childish heart that this all could only be a drunk dream. Adam stared at the fresh tattoo blankly for a while, as if hoping that the letters would vanish under his perplexed gaze. As soon as Adam looked up in horror, Theo threw his fist into the air victoriously, and although the picture was not quite distinguishable from a distance, Adam could easily figure it was a matching one. The only difference was that Theo’s tattoo was “Adam”.

“Theo…” Adam growled but Theo only beamed brighter.

“Yeah, I know it’s my name! And I have yours! Fantastic, isn’t it? I’m glad we did such a lovely thing and…”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course, I am! I love them! It’s already my favourite one among all the tattoos I have!”

With hands on his head both because of panic and a wish to shush Theo’s exultance, Adam stared at the sheet. “Such a lovely thing” was definitely beyond his plans and dreams.

“How did this even come into your head?” Adam finally wondered in a faint voice.

“Actually, it was you who suggested doing this,” Theo reported.

“Fucking hell… Why did you allow this then? You were certainly more sober than I was!”

“Well, you know how persistent you are sometimes. I couldn’t refuse even if I had wanted to. Why are you so mad about this? It’s kind of upsetting to hear that you don’t want my name on your wrist, you know,” Theo said with his eyebrows down, and Adam’s anger receded, making way for the haste to find a delicate wording.

“It’s not that… at least… not in that design?”

For a second, Theo shook with laughter, but then he recovered the discouraged face at once. Adam sensed some trick in this shenanigan. There was a slim chance that Theo would like something so tasteless. However, the grudge in his face seemed real, and Adam flared up again.

“Theo, can’t you see it’s hideous? And those scribbles will stay there for fucking life! Even if we were going to do such a monumental thing, we had to discuss it first! And not while being dead-drunk! I wasn’t going to come out through your name in Comic Sans on my wrist!”

“Whoa, calm down,” Theo stood up, chuckling and moving his hands up and down in a pacifying manner, “Actually, these are temporary. Just a harmless, washable prank.”

Adam looked at his wrist again and only then, when the panic settled down a bit, he noticed how fake the supposed tattoo looked.

“What the…”

“You were asleep for so long!” Theo explained, “I got bored and went for a walk. They sold those temporary tattoos in one shop – names, hearts, stars, flowers, all kinds of things… I bought some and did this just for a laugh. You didn’t even wince! I might’ve just dragged you to a real tattoo studio!”

“Oh my god…” Adam moaned in distress, “I’m never drinking again. Particularly with you.”

“Consider this therapy then. Theorapy, more precisely.”

Adam laughed quietly and reached for the tea. Gladdened by his seeming mercy, Theo sat beside Adam and kissed him on the cheek but the sleepy man’s attention was fully fixed on the food in front of him.

“Nope, Theorapy, not now. I had a feeling such blatancy wouldn’t appeal to you and it was just some stunt but I haven’t forgiven you yet anyway.”

“Not even a bit funny?” Theo pouted jokingly, his nose pecking Adam’s shoulder again and again. Adam hummed, his mouth full, and it was unclear what he was protesting against – his supposed low opinion of the joke or Theo’s playful caresses. “Okay, okay, I see, not going to disturb the sacred ritual anymore,” Theo giggled, nodding at the half-empty plate, and stood up, “I’ll go get rid of this “blatancy” while you’re busy…”

As Theo walked out, Adam finished his breakfast and pondered whether he had been too harsh. The prank was harmless indeed, after all, and Theo just wanted to lighten his hangover with a little laugh. Behind all puns and antics, he had always been a caring and sensitive man, and Adam was the one who knew it best. And Theo would never dare to…

“Oh fuck, Adam, it doesn’t wash off.”

“I won’t buy that for the second time, Theo,” Adam declared.

“I’m not kidding this time… it doesn’t… it just gets, uh… grungier…”

“For fuck’s sake, as if it couldn’t get any uglier. Rub it harder.”

“I am fucking rubbing it! It will probably take three or four days for them to come off completely!”

Theo came back to the bedroom with a desperate grimace, his T-shirt splashed with water from the panicky attempts to destroy the aftermath of the prank, and flopped on the bed. Adam went on sipping his tea in peace.

“Well, no rolled up sleeves for you,” he remarked revengefully, “I’m not really easy to wash off, am I?”

“Not at all.”

“Yours looks even more awkward now,” Adam said, glancing from the shabby line on Theo’s wrist to the clear picture on his own one, “As if we’ve broken up and you’ve tried to remove it but failed miserably.”

The scenario made Theo cringe, and he looked at Adam in fear.

“A temporary tattoo,” Adam sneered with a sigh, “So weak. My name probably just doesn’t want to be a temporary scribble.”

Suddenly, Theo jumped up and rushed back to the desk. He opened the drawer, took out a permanent marker – one of those they usually used for autographs – and renewed the name on his wrist, but now in his own handwriting that Adam liked much better. Theo saw that Adam was smiling, however hard he tried to mask it with a confused frown.

“It’s unlikely that this will last significantly longer that those toys,” Adam noticed as Theo sat down beside him, “At least we’re matching again, and the design is far cooler now.”

“Your name is never a temporary scribble, Adam,” Theo said softly, stroking his cheek, “It’s on my lips, in my heart and in my fate. There’s no such ink in the world that can express how forever you are for me. And don’t you ever say otherwise. It’s far more painful than any tattoo needle.”

Sincerely touched, Adam gave him a mild kiss and slid back under the blanket, leaning his head on Theo’s side. As their fingers interlaced, the names on their wrists touched and stayed close, like an omen of something bigger.

“I won’t,” Adam reassured, settling down and feeling that his headache was letting him go little by little, “I still stick to one thing, though.”

“Which one, dear?” Theo asked, and Adam closed his eyes with a sigh.

“I’m never drinking again.”


End file.
